I Have You
by DBSean
Summary: Dipper never felt like he truly belonged in Piedmont. As far as he was concerned, Gravity Falls was his real home. He had friends here. He had family here. Most importantly, he had Wendy. (Summer, 2013)


"**I Have You"**

**A/N: I binged the entirety of **_**Gravity Falls**_** over the course of a few days and ended up falling in love with Dipper and Wendy's dynamic. This is the result.**

"Hey, dude, I thought I'd find you up here!"

Dipper Pines looked up at the sound of his friend's voice, heat inadvertently rising to his cheeks as he watched Wendy Corduroy climb up the roof of the Mystery Shack to her secret slack-off spot – the one he was already occupying, having not expected to see her this evening. The small outcropping still had the beach chair, umbrella, and bucket of pinecones from the previous summer, but now also included a blanket and a boombox, and the cooler was filled to the brim with soda and other beverages Dipper was certain his Grunkle Stan would have disapproved of.

It was 2013, and Dipper and Mabel had arrived in Gravity Falls literally the day their summer vacation had started back in Piedmont, not wanting to miss a single second of summer with their friends and family. They had spent the next two weeks tracking down and spending time with practically everybody they knew in Gravity Falls, having been welcomed back to the town like returning heroes. The town had changed in their absence, if only a little, but so too had the twins; now _officially_ teenagers at thirteen years of age, the angst and acne that Wendy had promised them had to set in with a vengeance, although Dipper felt both had taken a rather unfair toll on him in particular, if his brooding moods and pockmarked face were anything to go by.

All of that was driven out of Dipper's mind, however, as he watched Wendy slide down the last few feet of roof to land on their little outcropping, a smile on her face the entire time. Of all the people Dipper had missed over the nine months he had spent away from Gravity Falls, he had most certainly missed Wendy the most; even now, after already having spent most of the past two weeks at her side, he still felt his heart leap at the sight of her.

_Not that I still have a crush on her or anything_, he assured himself as he unconsciously scratched at the woolen bomber hat he still wore. _Nope, totally over her. Tooootally._

"Oh, hey, W-Wendy," Dipper said aloud in what he hoped was a suave greeting, and doing his level best to ignore the way his voice cracked when he said her name. "I didn't know you were working tonight."

"I'm not," the sixteen-year-old responded with a shrug as she sat down next to him on the edge of the outcropping, tugging off the blue-and-white cap she wore as she did so. "But I wanted to see you dorks."

With that, Wendy handed her baseball cap over to Dipper with a smile, who happily exchanged it with the bomber hat he pulled off his own head. The exchange of hats between the two had become something of a tradition; they had first switched back when Dipper and Mabel first returned to Gravity Falls, but it wasn't long before the two had switched again.

"Maybe I just got used to wearing your dorky pine-tree hat," Wendy had told him the first time she had taken it back and tossed him her bomber hat.

"Yeah, sure, or maybe you just missed me," Dipper had responded as he (happily) tugged her hat over his messy hair.

"Pffft, you wish, dude," Wendy had countered with a laugh, straightening out her hair under the blue-and-white baseball cap.

From that point on, the two of them had switched hats every time they saw each other, to the point that neither really knew which hat was rightfully theirs anymore; not that it really mattered. So far as Dipper was concerned, Wendy could have handed him a comically oversized sombrero and he would have happily worn it around town with a smile on his face.

(Not that he still had a crush on her or anything.)

"The others were asking about you earlier," Wendy said, bringing Dipper out of his memories and returning him to the present. "We tried sneaking into the old lumber mill on the outskirts of town, but we couldn't get in. Thompson ended up getting stuck inside some big pipe or something. It took, like, an hour to get him out! We totally could have used your help, man. You would have had us in there in, like, no time flat."

Wendy was referring to Robbie, Tambry, Nate, Lee, and Thompson, all of whom had pretty much adopted Dipper and Mabel into their friend group since their return to Gravity Falls – the perks of finally being teenagers.

"Sorry," Dipper finally responded, adjusting his baseball cap slightly. "Mabel and I might have _accidentally_ woken up some of giant dragon worm and then spent the rest of the day running away from it."

"I was wondering what that smell was."

"Yeah, I got eaten a couple of times," Dipper said, frowning as he scratched at a sticky patch of slime on his arm. "I swear, I've taken like _four_ showers already."

"No worries, man," Wendy said before turning to him and smiling widely. "Besides, it sounds like I'm gonna be seeing a whole lot more of you even after the summer ends."

Dipper smiled. "You heard, huh?"

"Mabel told me," Wendy said, before holding up her phone and revealing the mass text she had received. "Well…she kinda told everyone. But still, rock on, dude! Look out, Gravity Falls High, here come the Pine Twins!"

"Here we come," Dipper confirmed with a nod.

It was true. After months of back-and-forth negotiations between their parents and Grunkle Stan, Dipper and Mabel had finally received confirmation earlier that afternoon that they would be staying in Gravity Falls not only for the summer, but for at least the entirety of their freshman year of high school. For the Pines Twins, it was like a dream come true; if Gravity Falls had felt like their true home before, the fact that they would be staying in town year-round only seemed to further entrench the idea that this is where they truly belonged.

"So, how's it feel knowing you get to stay in Gravity Falls full-time?" Wendy asked, looking over at her friend with a questioning eyebrow raised.

"Honestly? It feels _great_," Dipper admitted with a smile on his face as he leaned backwards slightly, looking out over the tops of the pine trees stretching out into the horizon as the sun slowly began to set. "Although I feel kinda guilty saying that considering Mabel's been on the phone all night saying goodbye to her friends back in Piedmont."

"Yeah, I hadn't really thought of that," Wendy said after a moment of thought, mimicking Dipper by leaning backwards on her two hands, still swinging her feet back and forth over the edge of the outcropping. "I guess it's kind of a bummer when you think about it."

"What do you mean?" Dipper asked, frowning slightly as he looked over at Wendy. "You don't think we should stay here?"

"No, don't get me wrong, man," Wendy said with a smile on her face. "You guys staying in Gravity Falls is downright _awesome_. And I'm, like, totally stoked about going to the same school with you and all that, but…aren't you going to miss all your friends in Piedmont?"

"Heh, yeah," Dipper said softly, trying to return Wendy's smile with a sad one of his own. "Friends. Real funny…"

Dipper had meant to say that last part of his statement beneath his breath, hoping Wendy wouldn't hear him. Unfortunately, as was so often the case, Wendy heard him regardless.

"What's funny?" she asked, an eyebrow raised questioningly and her smile wavering slightly.

_Damn it_, thought Dipper. _I really need to stop saying these things out loud_.

"It's nothing," he finally said after a moment's pause. "Forget I said anything."

"Dude, tell me," Wendy insisted playfully, even going so far as to shove him a little and then beginning to chant the way she had when she first convinced him to show her the birthmark on his forehead. "Come on, man. Tell me, tell me!"

Dipper sighed. It looked like he wasn't getting out of this one. Not that he had ever been able to deny Wendy anything she asked for.

"It's what you said about missing my friends back in Piedmont," he began, slowly moving himself forward so he was no longer leaning backwards and instead sat almost hunched over the edge of the outcropping, staring down at the ground instead of up at the sky.

"Yeah…?"

"Well, the thing is," Dipper finally continued, speaking slowly and already regretting how easily persuaded he was to do anything Wendy asked of him, "I don't really _have_ any friends back in Piedmont."

Whatever it was Wendy had expected to hear Dipper say, the statement that he seemingly had no friends back home certainly was not it.

"Come on," she said jokingly, one hundred percent certain Dipper was merely messing with her. "You're kidding me, right?"

Dipper's silence was all the answer Wendy needed, and she felt her heart sink into her stomach as she noticed the way her younger friend looked away, as though embarrassed to have admitted something so downright humiliating. Not that she had meant to humiliate him; just the opposite, actually. The thought of someone like Dipper – so smart, so sweet, so downright brave – having no friends at all seemed so far outside the realm of possibility that Wendy hadn't even considered it.

"Dude, you're not kidding," Wendy spoke softly, the realization dawning on her as she too moved up so she was slouching slightly. "You really don't have _any_ friends?"

"I have _you_ guys," Dipper responded, his voice noticeably cracking a little. "You, Mabel, Soos. Maybe Pacifica? That's part of why I wanted to go to high school here instead of Piedmont. People like me here. They know me. They…_care_ about me."

"What about your parents?" Wendy asked, almost too afraid to listen for the answer. "I mean, they care about you, right?"

"Wendy…" Dipper began with a sigh, once again turning away from her and unable to look her in the eye, "I don't think my parents even like me."

"What?"

"Think about it, Wendy," Dipper said, not condescendingly, but sadly, as though this was a topic he had already spent a truly tragic amount of time thinking about. He was still looking at the ground below as he spoke, as though there was nothing more he wanted than to throw himself from the roof. "What kind of parents ship their only children off to spend the entire summer in the middle of nowhere with an uncle they've never even met?"

"Well, when you put it like that, it _does_ kinda sound like questionable parenting," Wendy admitted after a moment's thought. A second later, her eyes widened as the last of Dipper's statement finally sunk in. "Wait a minute, you guys had never met Stan before last summer?"

Dipper shook his head. "I don't think my parents even knew about him until my Grandpa got sick."

"That's messed up, man."

"And that's why I fought so hard to stay here, to go to school here," Dipper explained, once again looking out over the horizon as the sun continued to set, casting the blue and purple hues of twilight upon the sky. "I never felt like I actually belonged in Piedmont, but I feel like I belong here. I mean, I have friends here. I have family here. I have – "

He stopped abruptly, causing Wendy to look over at him and frown questioningly, wondering why he stopped. Even under the cover of the approaching twilight, however, Wendy could see the blush in Dipper's cheeks and the words caught in his throat. She knew what he was going to say even before he said it, but she also knew she needed to let him say it, to let him get it out once and for all, for his own sake.

"I have _you_ here," Dipper finally said.

He said it so softly Wendy could barely hear him over the gentle summer breeze. But the fact remained that he _did_ say it, and she _did_ hear him, and that was what was important.

"Yeah, man," Wendy assured him, reaching over and taking his hand in her own. "You have me. And I ain't going anywhere."

Dipper finally looked up at that, smiling sadly and completely unable to hide the red in his cheeks. "Promise?"

"Promise, dude," Wendy responded, squeezing his hand reassuringly and ignoring the way her heart fluttered when he smiled back.

"And, um…you're not going to tell anyone what I said about not having any friends, right?" Dipper asked.

Wendy didn't even need to respond verbally; all the girl did was reach up with her one free hand, make a zipping motion across her mouth, and then throw away the imaginary key. Dipper smiled and then did the same, their pact sealed.

They were quiet for a while after that, merely sitting next to each other and holding hands as they watched the sun set over the horizon, gradually plunging the woods of Gravity Falls into darkness. Neither of them spoke until the sun had fully disappeared and the stars were finally beginning to twinkle in the pitch-black sky above them, bringing with them the cool breeze of the summer night. At the feel of the night chill, Wendy inadvertently shivered a little, to which Dipper responded by taking off his coat and offering it to her.

"Aw, look at you, being a proper gentleman," Wendy said as she accepted her friend's coat. "Aren't you gonna be cold, though?"

"N-N-Nah," Dipper lied through his teeth, noticeably shivering. "The c-c-cold doesn't b-b-bother me."

Wendy laughed. "Liar. Come on, dude, let's go inside. Movie marathon?"

Dipper nodded. "Movie marathon."

With that, the two of them slowly stood up and began to make their way across the roof and down towards the small door that would allow them back into the relative comfort of the Mystery Shack. Though still relatively warm outside, the wind was growing stronger and the air colder. Dipper was just about to open the door and begin making his way down the ladder and back into the gift shop when Wendy stopped him.

"Here, you better take this back before Mabel makes a big deal out of it," she said, taking off Dipper's jacket and handing it to him. "Oh, and while you're at it…you can take this, too."

Still busy accepting his jacket, Dipper could do nothing but freeze in place and blush a bright red in color as Wendy leaned over and placed a gentle kiss upon his lips. It was little more than a simple peck, but it might as well have been a winning lottery ticket to Dipper, who felt his eyes widen and a shiver run down his spine the moment Wendy's lips made contact with his. By the time he truly understood exactly what was happening, the kiss had already ended and Wendy was already smiling back at him.

"Was…was that for giving you my jacket?" Dipper asked once he finally managed to speak around the frog in his throat, causing Wendy to laugh a little in response.

"Nah," Wendy told him simply, still smiling affectionately, "I'm just really glad you're staying here in Gravity Falls, Dipper."

"Me, too, Wendy," Dipper responded with red in his cheeks and a goofy smile on his face. "Me, too."


End file.
